Foreign Policy: Why do so many travel guides make excuses for dictators?

These days, the young and progressive book travel online, eschewing tour groups and specialized travel agents. This leaves the task of a travelers’ political education to guidebook empires like Lonely Planet and Rough Guides, both of which — while offering what Lonely Planet calls “honest and objective” advice on where to find the perfect pisco sour in Peru or that slice of beach paradise in Cambodia — provide detailed, polemical asides on the political history and culture of the countries under review.